West Hollywood’s selection last week of 16 licensees to operate cannabis consumption lounges and cannabis restaurants in city business districts located on some of Southern California’s most famous streets revolutionizes and mainstreams public consumption in America’s legal cannabis states.

Eight licensees were approved to operate lounges that may allow all forms of cannabis consumption — smoking, vaping, eating edibles — as well cook and serve fresh-made “virgin” foods with THC and CBD sauces on the side. Eight licensees were approved to cook and serve cannabis-infused foods in restaurant settings and for private dinners not featuring smoking or vaping. All lounges will be tied to retail cannabis stores.

Other retail cannabis licenses issued include on the world’s first hotel-based cannabis boutique and white-glove delivery service, Lord Jones at The Standard Hotel on world-famous Sunset Strip.

Proposed lounge designs, environmentally conscious and alternative-energy aware, are contemporary eye-candy ranging from modest-chic to full-on lavish, befitting Sunset and Santa Monica boulevards, West Hollywood’s primary drags where lounges and retail stores are allowed, along with Melrose Avenue. Many lounges will feature entertainment. All will offer wellness and community services and will contribute to neighborhood security.

While licensees include veterans of Los Angeles hospitality, entertainment, wellness and cannabis industries, four of the best-known cannabis chefs in America — Jeff Danzer, Andrea Drummer, Holden Jagger and Brandon Allen — are involved in approved teams. One of Southern California’s best dispensaries, Greenwolf, and an owner of L.A.-based mids- and sub-mids bargain brands Loudpack and Dime Bag scored too, as did longtime medicinal cannabis activist Don Duncan of Americans for Safe Access.

When business secure locations and obtain operating permits in 2019, West Hollywood officials envision the high-energy city becoming a buzzworthy legal cannabis destination. WeHo leaders see WeHo cannabis lounge clientele and WeHo bar, hotel and restaurant clientele overlapping and visiting other businesses in the city that’s more stylish than nearby Hollywood and hipper than abutting Beverly Hills.

The story I propose highlights radically mainstreaming and consumer-and- industry-friendly aspects of West Hollywood’s lounge ordinance, which allows on-premises cooking and food service; attracted some of California’s top cannabis-cuisine talent; allows outdoor and rooftop smoking; allows operating hours 6 a.m.-2 a.m. seven days a week; and may rocket West Hollywood — home to the famed Sunset Strip and legendary music clubs Whisky a Go Go, The Viper Room and The Troubadour — to the top-ranking cannabis destination in America.

Meanwhile, for context, West Hollywood’s radically mainstreaming cannabis consumption lounge regulations advanced while Ontario’s clean-air smoking regulations are putting cannabis lounges out of business and Canadian cannabis consumers out on the streets; as Alaska just approved cannabis lounge regulations after two years of fits and starts; as San Francisco’s Vapor Room, now the city’s ninth lounge, reopened in a brighter space and climate six years after being closed by the feds; just before Tick Segerblom, the Nevada state senator who championed cannabis legislation, joins the county commission that controls the artsy part of old Las Vegas set to welcome lounges in 2019; and while consumption lounges aren’t sparking in Denver.

Microbusiness licenses allow permit holders to operate three of four types of cannabis businesses: cultivation, manufacturing, distribution and retail.

This California license type is up for adoption Tuesday by the Sacramento City Council.

Soon, Sacramento will also consider increasing the number of cannabis retail stores it permits, currently capped at 30.

With one or two more tweaks — Sacramento will consider cannabis lounges in 2019 — I can envision a day when microbusiness license holders in Sacramento — the self-appointed Farm-to-Fork Capital of America that prides itself on local — open self-sufficient boutique retail stores and adjacent lounges featuring their own “house-grown” cannabis in product styles and portion sizes — grams, joints, micro-dabs — suitable for safe consumption at places of purchase near population centers, not necessarily destination dispensaries hawking BOGO deals at the edge of town.

Top five contenders for opening capital city’s first cannabis lounge for social consumption.

The next milestone facing Sacramento is whether the city should permit cannabis lounges — licensed and regulated places where adults age 21 and over can congregate to consume cannabis in social settings, like the lounge scene in San Francisco.

The city is expected to consider allowing cannabis lounges this fall. If allowed, applicants will be limited to currently operating businesses holding retail sales licenses from the state, and locations will be tied to stores’ physical addresses.

Until then, here are my top five contenders for opening Sacramento’s first cannabis lounge:

Northstar

Hugs

A Therapeutic Alternative

515 Broadway

Abatin Wellness

My observations and comments, based on the nature of the current operation, management’s credibility, and future lounges’ locations and proximity to public transit, are contained within the embedded map below.

America’s first legal cannabis lounge will not open in Denver. America’s first legal cannabis lounge will not open in Las Vegas. Forget about Alaska, Maine and Massachusetts, too. America’s first legal cannabis lounges are already open in San Francisco.

Permitted for more than a decade and tolerated since the earliest days of the city’s medicinal cannabis community in the 1990s, San Francisco cannabis lounges are models of public use in social settings. They’re now serving the city’s legal adult-use recreational cannabis market, including locals and tourists.

America’s first legal cannabis lounge will not open in Denver. America’s first legal cannabis lounge will not open in Las Vegas. Forget about Alaska, Maine and Massachusetts, too. America’s first legal cannabis lounges are already open in San Francisco.

Permitted for more than a decade and tolerated since the earliest days of the city’s medicinal cannabis community in the 1990s, San Francisco cannabis lounges are models of public use in social settings. They’re now serving the city’s legal adult-use recreational cannabis market.

America’s first legal cannabis lounge opened Thursday in San Francisco.

Actually, Barbary Coast Collective opened its luxe lounge next to its South of Market medicinal cannabis dispensary in March. Barbary Coast started serving adult-use recreational customers Thursday, making it the first legal, regulated cannabis lounge in America — the holy grail of the modern cannabis era.

“It’s something we’re proud of and excited about,” Barbary Coast director Jesse Henry told me. “I think we are going to get a lot of people who’ll think it’s like going to Amsterdam, and we’ll provide a safe, clean, comfortable place for folks to smoke.”

One of the city’s medicinal cannabis lounges will be America’s first recreational pot lounge when adult-use cannabis sales start Saturday.

ED MURRIETA

SAN FRANCISCO — The first pot lounge in America will not open in Denver.

The first pot lounge in America will not open in Las Vegas.

Forget about Alaska, Maine and Massachusetts, too.

The first pot lounge in America is already open in San Francisco.

On Saturday, when San Francisco medicinal cannabis dispensaries are expected to transition to the adult-use recreational market, it’ll be official.

There are eight pot lounges in California’s historically progressive cannabis capital, all currently operating inside or adjacent to dispensaries, providing the city’s medicinal cannabis consumers comfortable and safe environments to smoke, vape, dab and socialize — the holy grail of every pothead who’s ever heard of Amsterdam.

“We have eight existing lounges in the city, and they will be able to continue operating in 2018,” San Francisco’s Office of Cannabis director Nicole Elliott said.

Permitted for more than a decade and tolerated since the earliest days of the city’s medicinal cannabis community, San Francisco dispensary lounges are models of public cannabis consumption.

Whichever dispensary/lounge receives its temporary adult-use retail sales permit from the state — all San Francisco dispensary/lounges reportedly await city permits, the first step in the permit process before permits are granted — will be the first licensed, on-premises consumption lounge in an adult-use recreational cannabis state, leaving Las Vegas, Denver, Alaska, Maine and Massachusetts all playing for second.

There’s at least one more cannabis store/lounge on the way. The Vapor Room opened in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood in 2003 and was shut down by the federal government in 2012. The Vapor Room was cleared to open as a medicinal dispensary/lounge and is now under construction in a new location downtown with an eye toward the recreational market.

“The lounges are like a civic water cooler where people gather and build relationships and community,” said Lloyd Francis, a San Francisco novelist who frequented The Vapor Room on Haight Street. “I have met many close friends at San Francisco cannabis lounges.”

Cannabis lounge proposals have been pursued, with limited success and the requisite fits, stops and starts, in Las Vegas, Denver, Alaska, Maine and Massachusetts.

‘We have eight existing lounges in the City, and they will be able to continue operating in 2018,’ S.F. cannabis czar says.

BY ED MURRIETA

While Denver, Las Vegas and Massachusetts are racing to claim the honor of being the first place in America to host a legal, adult-use cannabis consumption lounge, eight San Francisco medicinal cannabis dispensary lounges are poised to give San Francisco claim to being the home of the first legal, adult-use cannabis consumption lounge in America come 9 a.m. on Jan. 6, 2018 — the first day of the new legal era in which the city’s currently permitted medicinal social lounges can serve the recreational market.

Anyone wanting to be the first cannabis lounge in America has until 8:59 a.m. PST on the first Saturday of January. You’ll be competing with the Apple store of cannabis lounges, a Burning Man-inspired lounge that feels like a steampunk sex club and the newest most decadent lounge in town, which I just had the honor of helping to name the best cannabis lounge in the San Francisco Chronicle’s GreenState Awards.

“We have eight existing lounges in the City, and they will be able to continue operating in 2018,” San Francisco’s Office of Cannabis director Nicole Elliott told me in an email this afternoon.

California has not yet created a licensing scheme for cannabis lounges, nor does the state expressly prohibit cannabis lounges. Absent state prohibition, local governments like San Francisco, Denver and Las Vegas can approve cannabis lounges. San Francisco’s eight existing medicinal cannabis dispensary lounges — along with one that was shuttered by the federal government in 2011 and is preparing to re-open near Twitter headquarters — will be allowed to operate under city regulations they’ve operated under over the past decade. Dispensaries that apply for new licenses in 2018 will be subject to stricter ventilation and hermetically sealed smoking room requirements.

California pot czar Lori Ajax told regulators in Sacramento last week that when the state licenses cannabis lounges some time next year, lounge licenses will be tied to dispensary permits. There’ll be no stand-alone pot cafes in California.

San Francisco is the de facto model for pot lounges and social cannabis consumption in America.

Three of San Francisco’s leading dispensary lounges — Barbary Coast, Urban Pharm and Sparc — told they’re pursuing the state permit that’ll allow them to transition to the adult-use market. I’m checking with the other five dispensaries regarding their plans.

Since the 19th century, when robber barons’ wives insisted they spend their railroad riches in San Francisco, Sacramento Valley elites have aspired to the greater heights of the city.

Two San Francisco medical cannabis dispensaries match that migration. Cookies SF emerged from Sacramento’s Collective Efforts, which breeds and markets the hell out of Cookies strains. Urban Pharm has roots in Sacramento’s Northstar Holistic Collective, since 2010 my go-to dispensary in the state capital.

Opened in December 2015, Urban Pharm is among San Francisco’s new design-intensive gilded-age cannabis dispensaries.

Quality, selection and value of Urban Pharm’s flowers, extracts and edibles meet or beat other top pot shops in the city.

Since the 19th century, when robber barons’ wives insisted they spend their railroad riches in San Francisco, Sacramento Valley elites have aspired to the greater heights of the city.

Two San Francisco medical cannabis dispensaries match that migration. Cookies SF emerged from Sacramento’s Collective Efforts, which breeds and markets the hell out of Cookies strains. Urban Pharm has roots in Sacramento’s Northstar Holistic Collective, since 2010 my go-to dispensary in the state capital.

Opened in December 2015, Urban Pharm is among San Francisco’s new design-intensive gilded-age cannabis dispensaries.

Quality, selection and value of Urban Pharm’s flowers, extracts and edibles meet or beat other top pot shops in the city.

If the Power Exchange desired a template for a steampunk sex club slash cannabis store and lounge, Urban Pharm could be it in spades. Fronted by a spanking-new Edwardian-ish facade lacquered in green and black and offset by signage composed of golden-hued bulbs, Urban Pharm exudes a club-like vibe: moody lighting, caged entry, reclaimed wood and cut metal accents throughout.

Is it medical? Is it retail? Yes.

You may recognize Urban Pharm’s 10th Street location as the former SF Medical Cannabis Clinic. Urban Pharm replaced that scruffy dispensary following an increasingly common real estate do-si-do that includes the sale of a property and an ensuing eviction.

Where SF Medical Cannabis Clinic was a second home to the disenfranchised living in the single-room occupancies that have given way to today’s SOMA developments, Urban Pharm feels more like an office-away-from-the-office for entrepreneurs in hoodies who gather to share dabs and their latest beats. If Urban Pharm caters to workers from nearby Uber and Twitter headquarters, it happens discretely.

If Urban Pharm enforces the 20-minute time limit that signs on the the wall advertise, I saw none of it. In fact, with Urban Pharm providing electrical outlets for charging phones and powering laptops, I and everyone else I encountered in a half dozen visits overstayed the time limit with abandon.

In my recent visits, Girl Scout Cookies strains dominated the top shelf. One mid-tier offering caught my attention: Skittlez, a Mendocino hybrid I encountered at a food-pot pairing event earlier this year. I have two memories of my first Skittlez: It was an amazingly effervescent high that tickled my sinuses like citrusy phosphate soda had gone up my nose, and people at the event indiscriminately scooping up Skittlez buds by the handful. Last week, I bought a gram for $15. Creative brain sparks rattled in my head like a shaken bag of hard-shelled fruit-flavored candy chews.

Dabbing super-potent concentrates may be too heady of a trip for the casual cannabis consumer. But whether you’re a first-time dabber or someone whose backpack contains a glass rig, butane torch and variety-pack of shatter, wax and budder like a wide-brimmed dude dabbing next to me last week, Urban Pharm’s budtenders double as dabtenders, offering advice on choosing and consuming concentrates, and, most importantly, handling everything that involves sticky substances and hot surfaces. Just press your lips to the mouthpiece and inhale.

I chose a $5 dab, extracted with propane, not the butane I was expecting at that price. The high notes were clean. The bottom notes were herbaceous. Like hitting off a Volcano vaporizer. Not bad for the price, and served with a heavy hand that yielded three good hits that held on for hours.

The $7 dabs included some fruity Brass Knuckles brand strains that I’d tasted a week earlier at a product demo. The $10 dabs included the live-resin style through which oil is extracted from buds that have been freshly harvested and immediately frozen, giving the terpene-rich oil an ice-wine intensity.

I’d like to try a dab flight for the full range of comparison.

Urban Pharm scores where it counts — at the lowest-cost item in any dispensary’s display case, the joint. A $7 house cone made from the kind of leftover buds no one would enter in a weed-porn contest but which nonetheless have wonderful personality burned evenly and smoked smoothly.

Touting the city before it hosted the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, President William Howard Taft declared San Francisco to be “the city that knows how.” One hundred and one years later, on the ongoing eve of cannabis legalization in California, these medical cannabis dispensary lounges show off San Francisco’s know-how when it comes to the social use of cannabis — a hot-button issue even in states where recreational cannabis is legal. San Francisco’s smoking/vaping lounges range from cannabis chic to hippie humble. Six are located downtown and there’s one more due to open this fall — all in easy proximity to hotels, restaurants, shopping and museums. You must be a California resident with ID and the requisite medical cannabis paperwork to enjoy these lounges.

Vapor Room

Recently re-opened in a new location after the feds shut down the dispensary/lounge in 2012, Vapor Room carries Friendly Farms’ vape cartridges and sauces immediately south of Market Street, a short walk from major entertainment, civic and cultural venues. Vapor Room offers a brighter, airier but more intimate lounge environment in its new location than it did in the Lower Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. Vapor Room’s new lounge area is fronted by a large storefront window facing 9th Street, shining a light on the goings on within: adults responsibly consuming cannabis in a comfortable social setting. From inside, vapers and smokers can watch the city pass by. Vapor Room specializes in sun-grown cannabis and operates bodega style. Wander the store. Grab what you’re going to buy — say, a Friendly Farms’ vape cartridge or sauce — and pay at the counter. Vapor Room is vape-only from opening until 4:20 p.m., upon which time smoking is allowed until closing.

Moe Greens

Moe Greens is the newest, largest and most ambitious cannabis lounge in a city that’s pioneered public cannabis consumption in America. Located on Market Street near major culture and entertainment venues, Twitter, Uber, City Hall and BART, Moe Greens is like three cannabis lounges in one: one lounge for vaping, one lounge for dabbing and one lounge for smoking. Designed in gleaming blonde woods, emerald leatherette, starburst chandeliers and golden accents against raw brick, Moe Greens vibes the best of old-school and modern-day San Francisco. Although no food is served (you can BYO within reason), Moe Greens is the most restaurant-like cannabis lounge. Coming soon: Reserve tables., order at tables, pay at tables. State-of-the-art tools and dab rigs are available for customer use. Moe Greens doesn’t yet stock Friendly Farms; until then, I recommend Moe Greens’ house-brand Gelato flower at $8 per gram.

Magnolia Wellness

Across the bay in Oakland, Friendly Farms’ sauces are served at $4 per dab in Magnolia’s dab bar and lounge, along with other premium cannabis concentrates. Recent Friendly Farms’ strains include SFOG and Clementine.

All ticket sales benefit Sacramento Self Help Housing, which assists local people who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless find and retain stable and affordable housing.

“Giving back is a big part of Friendly Farms’ company culture,” said Darrin Gatto, CEO of the innovative artisan cannabis extracts maker that donates portions of its its sales to charitable causes. “We value our community.”

In between, here are my recommendations for eating, drinking and more during The Ugly Sweater Christmas Crawl. Please note, any suggested pairings are inspired by Friendly Farms’ menu and participating businesses’ menus. If only the twain could meet.

Tiger. Small plates — from peanuts to pickles to oysters to riblettes — are the culinary equivalent of quick pen-pen hits to get you through the night.

Coin Op. Classic video and pinball games are the perfect apres-vaping activity.

Dedicated to Giving

Friendly Farmscontributes to services fighting homelessness through its community Give Back Program. Friendly Farmsdonates $1 from every gram sold to charity programs in Sacramento, the Bay Area and Los Angeles. All proceeds from $1 dabs and vape-pen tastings at the High Times Cannabis Cup and The Emerald Cup were donated to services combating homelessness.

“With the support of our customers and retail partners,” Friendly Farms CEO Gatto said, “our community Give Back Program helps us help people facing the biggest social issues plaguing California: homelessness and the lack of youth support in our communities. We’re fortunate to be able to give back.”

I palmed two twenties and slalomed the sidewalk demimonde of dreadlocks, dogs and dubious hygiene.

I made eye contact by mistake.

Ganja girl flashed a broken smile and a digital scale.

“Full weight,” she said. “No Haighths, man.”

Haighths. That’s local lingo for notoriously pinched bags, two or three nugs shy of what both stoners and connoisseurs would agree is the common unweighed standard for an eighth of an ounce of cannabis flowers.

In the era of cannabis prohibition, Haighths were a form of street tax and convenience fee. Overpaying cash for underweight weed was the street-buyer’s bargain if you were a tourist, if your regular dealer was out of town, if your medical card expired or if you needed a last-minute housewarming gift on your way to dinner at your friend’s pad.

Salt Spring Island

Toronto

Smith Falls

One of Canada’s largest cannabis companies wants to revive tourism 80 miles south of Ottawa by turning the former chocolate capital of Ontario into Canada’s cannabis museum capital. In August, Canopy Growth opened a cannabis visitors center in the town formerly best known for the Hershey Chocolate Factory that Canopy’s HQ now occupies. The visitors center features exhibits about the art, culture, science and history of cannabis.

Prince Edward Island

You can smoke inside hotels, motels and bed and breakfasts on the eastern maritime province, home to cultivator Island Garden. The government recently granted hospitality companies the right to set their own consumption rules.

Niagara Falls

Niagara Falls tourism officials think there’s a chance American tourists will cross the International Boundary into Ontario — by car and foot — to smoke legal pot and are planning for legal consumption cafes.

Banff

The artsy Alberta resort town is so cannabis friendly it’s considering liberal local legislation to allow smoking and vaping in parks, picnic areas, trails, sidewalks and greenspaces that are neither sports fields nor playgrounds.

Ed’s Note: I researched and wrote food, beer and travel stories in British Columbia when I lived in Tacoma WA in the mid-2000s. I was a card-carrying member of The Cannabis Buyers Club of Canada and visited Victoria regularly. Canadian cannabis tourism opportunities I envisioned then bud today. British Columbia’s royally quaint capital is directly and easily reachable via ferry from Seattle. A walkable city with double-decker buses that get you around, you can visit Terp City and Nuage vapor lounges and Victoria’s great gastro pubs without risking DUIs.

Sustainability and seasonality rule Victoria, where the art and science of food is a cut above pub grub.

BY ED MURRIETA

VICTORIA, British Columbia – A bartender asked where I’m from. I told him.

“You guys have a lot of great beers down there,” he said.

“Thank you,” I replied. “The food’s better up here.”

I wasn’t simply acting polite in this commonwealth capital better known for flowers than food. I was trying not to act like one of those Pacific Northwest Americans who get googly-eyed over Canada.

It was a rainy day in November. I’d just enjoyed a glowing bowl of carrot soup that parted the clouds.

High-speed rail is years off but Transbay Transit Center can speed your journey to cannabis — and offers stunning views from a quarter-mile-long rooftop park you can visit after you get high nearby.

BY ED MURRIETA

San Francisco’s old temporary bus station is only two blocks away and itself served routes where cannabis is legally sold and consumed in neighborhood stores and lounges, from the Financial District and South of Market to the Mission District and Bernal Heights and beyond.

San Francisco’s fancy new $2 billion bus station — the Transbay Transit Center or the Salesforce Transit Center depending on how you honor naming rights for public amenities — grand opened on Saturday and today begins doing what it was built to do: be a transportation hub for the city’s Muni bus lines, Greyhound buses, Amtrak buses and regional commuter buses entering and exiting the city.

In addition to an exclusive skyway that carries buses off the Bay Bridge, the new Transbay Transit Center offers bus riders architectural eye candy and a stunning urban amenity: a quarter-mile-long rooftop park open to the public that provides towering, intoxicating views amid steel-and-glass skyscraper construction.

You can’t legally smoke cannabis in the Transbay Transit Center’s Salesforce Park. (It’s guarded by people and video cameras 24/7.) But you can certainly consume at a nearby cannabis lounge and return to enjoy the park. Do be aware of each bus line’s rules about carrying cannabis.

The subterranean high-speed trains in the architect’s rendering above? They’re part of a future plan. For now, Transbay Transit Center, or the Salesforce Transit Center, is a fancy bus depot that’ll soon feature pop-up food vendors, public art and entertainment.

See the map below for all the cannabis stores and lounges that easily reachable by bus or walking from the Transbay Transit Center.

Cruise-ship travelers are disembarking to legal cannabis on the West Coast of the United States and soon in Canada.

Major cruise lines docking in Juneau, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Long Beach and San Diego today are just gangways away from legal ganja.

On Oct. 17, when legalization begin in Canada, Vancouver, BC, will become the West Coast’s 10th significant pot port and one of the rare places in all legal lands where tourists can smoke in cafes.

When Massachusetts’ recreational cannabis stores go online sometime this summer, there’ll be an international East Coast pot port enclave extending from Boston to Quebec City, Canada.

Today, you can pull into ports on many major cruise lines working the Pacific Ocean and immerse yourself in the best cannabis stores, the best cannabis lounges, the best cannabis dinners and the best cannabis activities in legal cannabis states.

Depending on how long you’re in port — some cruises pull in for several hours, some for a day or two — you can book tours or DIY your own excursions.

But just don’t carry or use cannabis on board cruise ships. Here’s the bottom line from one major cruise line servicing North America’s Pacific Ocean coast:

Ed Murrieta’s Cannabis Lounge Pitch Deck

Wherever cannabis is legal, the public needs safe and comfortable places to smoke pot and socialize. Here’s a vision for such a place, even a chain of smoking lounges.

Ed Murrieta’s Cannabis Edibles Safety App Pitch Deck

Ed Murrieta’s California Cannabis Cookies Pitch

FARM-TO-FORK EDIBLES POWERED BY
SMALL-BATCH, HIGH-TECH CANNABIS OIL

EDZ California Cannabis Cookies are the first in a line of farm-to-fork edibles hand-crafted to precise dosages.

Every EDZ cookie begins with cannabis grown in California’s Emerald Triangle. We press pure cannabis oil in small batches. Then we formulate our recipes to precise dosages, giving you only the most beneficial, aromatic and flavorful elements.

Created by Ed Murrieta, an edibles expert and food journalist who helped market the Sacramento Convention and Visitors Bureau’s inaugural Farm-to-Fork Capital of America campaign, EDZ California Cannabis Cookies contain local ingredients at their natural heights:

Legal cannabis is best enjoyed in social lounges, with gourmet food and in the hands of five-star hotel spa masseuses.

BY ED MURRIETA

SAN FRANCISCO — Like Amsterdam, this lusty city-state boasts picaresque history, edgy authenticity, mind-blowing art and Instagrammable sights, and among inclined travelers is a cannabis bucket-list destination. From Barbary Coast Bohemians to Beat generation poets and the Sixties’ Summer of Love to today’s legalized renaissance, cannabis has enshrouded San Francisco in intoxicating fog, a heady come-hither whether you wear flowers in your hair or Kate Spades on your feet. Once, tourists scored baggies of pot from hygiene-challenged ragamuffins on hippie-haven Haight Street; modern visitors marvel at the commercialization and wide-spread availability of California’s top agricultural product now that it’s taxed and regulated by the state and innovated by artisans and entrepreneurs. So dive into world-class cannabis retailing; decadent social-consumption lounges; gourmet meals and five-star hotel spa massages incorporating the plant; and local craft beer and cocktails spiked with cannabis extracts, toasting San Francisco’s gay and high history.

Enhance the city’s 2018 James Beard winners with the city’s best dispensaries and smoking-vaping lounges.

Dominique Crenn, left, and Barbary Coast.

BY ED MURRIETA

Four San Francisco culinary stars were recognized by the 2018 James Beard Foundation Awards this week. By way of toasting their accomplishments and complementing their allure, here are my suggestions for pairing San Francisco’s Beard award-winners and the city’s best legal commercial cannabis experiences.

Dominique Crenn + Barbary Coast

Poetic, adventuresome, traditional and modernist all describe San Francisco’s two Michelin star chef and the city’s sexiest cannabis destination. Dominique Crenn, chef and owner of Atelier Crenn, Bar Crenn and Petit Crenn, won the Beard award for best chef in the Western United States. If there was an analogous award for best all-in-one store-dab bar-smoke lounge in the West, it would be Barbary Coast. Aesthetically an homage to old-school San Francisco’s Gilded Era vice district. Barbary Coast is straight-up state-of-the-art — from high-end concentrates to high-tech vaporizers and HVAC systems that silently suck smoke from the room so it doesn’t stink up your clothes.

B. Patisserie + SPARC

The work-and-life partners behind B. Patisserie, a small Pacific Heights bake shop with a cult-like following, are San Francisco baking royalty. Belinda Leong was pastry chef at San Francisco fine-dining notables Gary Danko and Manresa. Michael Suas founded the San Francisco Baking Institute. Get their killer kouign amann to go and enjoy the buttery Britney-style croissant buns South of Market at SPARC, along with Volcano-vaped, farm-grown, lab-tested cannabis and free hot tea from the self-serve bar. (SPARC told me $2 cups of organic family-farmed coffee are on the way.)

In Situ + Urban Pharm

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s restaurant serves “borrowed” dishes “on loan” from world-renowned chefs. Feed your head on a la carte dabs at Urban Pharm (or smoke joints if that’s your jam) then feast your eyes on intentionally spare alternate dimensions at In Situ, which won the Beard award for Outstanding Restaurant Design (76 seats and over). Like In Situ, Urban Pharm elides polished and raw, a steampunked Burning Man blend of cut metal and re-purposed wood.

Zuni Cafe + The Apothecarium

The iconic restaurant’s roast chicken and hamburger are both longtime legends. Now. Zuni’ Cafe‘s front of the house gets its due — Beard’s Outstanding Service award. Hop on a classic street car for a half-mile ride to The Apothecarium, the flagship of three local cannabis stores where chandeliers, marble counters and soft music ooze elegance of high-end jewelry boutiques. To match Zuni’s service, let The Apothecarium’s professional consultants guide you through a delicious selection of California’s best edibles, concentrates and cannabis strains.

The state’s $141 million shy of the $175 million it predicted cultivation and excise taxes would generate by the end of the fiscal year.

SACRAMENTO, CA — California adults are not purchasing enough taxed-and-regulated cannabis to meet the state’s revenue projections for the first six months of legal, levied sales.

A report due Friday from the Department of Tax and Fee Administration will show the state collected $34 million in cannabis sales for the first quarter of 2018 — leaving the state $141 million shy of the $175 million it predicted cannabis cultivation and excise taxes will generate by the end of the 2017-2018 fiscal year, June 30.

The figures were published online Tuesday in a blog post by an economist at the state Legislative Analyst’s Office and are the latest indication that California cannabis consumers may be turning to the black market to avoid paying up to 45 percent taxes when local sales taxes are factored.

The Department of Tax and Fee Administration figures do not address local taxes, which range from 7.25 percent to 9.25 percent, and are tallied at the local level.

In addition to black-market sales affecting state projections, lower-than-forecast tax revenues may be due to the number of California cities and counties banning cannabis businesses, and the late start of adult-use retail sales in Los Angeles, the state’s largest market.

Prohibition-era zoning pushed many cannabis stores to cities’ industrial fringes. Northstar Holistic Collective, while technically in the heart of downtown Sacramento, is located in a neighborhood that was, just a generation ago, an industrial edge of the capital city, where Victorian homes, leafy trees and tired warehouses comfortably coexist today.

It’s here on a quiet corner near a light-rail station, a historic highway and a Quonset hut that one of Sacramento’s oldest shops consistently proves why it’s one of the city’s best: fine flowers, concentrates galore, across-the-board prices, smart budtenders, easy parking and no pretense.

Check-in is no-fuss and high-tech. Get buzzed in, hand your ID to the receptionist and look into a camera connected to software that’ll digitally compare your facial features to the photo on your ID, one of the ways cannabis stores are trying to prevent ID fraud and over-visiting.

Easy-to-read flat-panel menus on the waiting room wall are helpful and convenient — not just because you’ll be sitting in a comfortable chair in a spacious room for 10 to 15 minutes at peak times but because Northstar’s old-school glass retail cabinets aren’t much to look at and pretty much serve as storage and counter space.

House joints ($7 mid-grade, $10 top-shelf) are pleasurable and priced right. While I don’t buy concentrates, I recognized many of the resins and shatters I’ve sampled in the lounge at Urban Pharm, Northstar’s San Francisco cousin. Northstar has a good selection of edibles and topicals, too.

Northstar recently added a great new perk for its medicinal cannabis customers. Your printed-on-paper Prop. 215 recommendation — no need for the $100 county-issued card — will save you nearly half off the 23.75 percent combined state and local taxes Northstar charges adult-use customers.

I’m a veteran reporter, writer, editor and multimedia producer whose cannabis journalism appears in the San Francisco Chronicle’s GreenState.com, Leafly.com and other leading cannabis publications. I’ve worked as a food writer, restaurant critic, features writer, sportswriter, copy editor and online producer. McClatchy, Knight-Ridder and Universal Press Syndicate have distributed my work internationally. The content on this page is my vision of “the cannabis features section” I sought to create when I launched Pot Appetit in 2010.

Despite its history as California’s capital of drug culture and commerce, San Francisco was not the first city in the state to legally sell medicinal cannabis and will not be the first city in the state to legally sell recreational cannabis. (Berkeley nabbed the medicinal honor and Oakland will get the recreational glory.)

Historically, San Francisco’s other cannabis firsts include:

The Psychedelic Shop, the first and most influential head shop in America, opening in January 1966, becoming the epicenter of hippie culture and commerce, including extra-legal drug sales and on-premises pot smoking.

Activist Dennis Peron, in 1974, opening The Island, a cannabis-friendly restaurant where pot was in the air and for sale upstairs.

The Board of Supervisors approving the first medical cannabis initiative in 1991, five years before California voters authorized medicinal cannabis.

Massive Cultivation, Most Dispensaries Per Capita
and Cannabis-Friendly Resorts and Rentals
Make Palm Springs, Cathedral City and
Desert Hot Springs a Pot, Pot, Pot, Pot World

BY ED MURRIETA

It’s high season in the Coachella Valley — for tourism and for pot.

Now’s the time to combine them both.

If you want to visit California next week for a taste of historic cannabis legalization in the Golden State, the Coachella Valley — in particular the resort-town cluster of Palm Springs, Cathedral City and Desert Hot Springs — is one of the best places to plan a cannabis getaway for Opening Day of legal pot sales, better than other California cannabis travel destinations like San Francisco, Los Angeles and Lake Tahoe, all lagging behind the Jan. 1 start date.

A longtime playground for movie stars, mobsters, sunseekers and alternative lifestyles 100 miles southeast of Los Angeles, the Coachella Valley has the key elements intrepid cannabis travelers need to ring in California’s new legal era:

massive local cultivation;

most dispensaries per capita set to sell flowers, edibles and concentrates to adults age 21 and over;

cannabis-friendly lodgings, including two cannabis-friendly (and clothing-optional) hot springs resorts and a colorful mountain hotel with a vape-friendly cabin and smoke-friendly grounds;

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Rising rents for street-side properties and a push for infill development drive trend in urban alleys.

By Ed Murrieta

SACRAMENTO — Alleys in America are most commonly associated with illicit activities and unsavory characters. Even if people visit such alleys, few know their names.

Today in Sacramento, alleys within the city’s downtown and midtown core are breeding grounds for hipster entrepreneurs, urban infill development and local branding — homes to third-wave coffee roasters, a kaleidoscopic cantina, a displaced dive bar and a beer-and-pizza joint where you can play games like corn hole inside a foodie fortress made of shipping containers.

Unlike like San Francisco’s Belden Place, a narrow pedestrian alley in the Financial District that serves as the main entry for a cluster of well-known restaurants that border its one-block path between Bush and Pine streets, Sacramento’s alleys hide single outposts that feel like real finds when you happen upon them as you crisscross leafy-green streets and paved alleys while looking for parking.

Utilization of Sacramento’s alleys is driven by a public-private project that funds alley repaving, sewer upgrades and new names that that replace alphabet-based names (B Street Alley, C Street Alley, et. al) and honor Sacramento culture and history with names like Tomato Alley, Solon Alley and Liestal Alley, the latter for the Swiss town where Sacramento pioneer John Sutter was born.

I propose a go-and-do day-trip travel story that spotlights Cantina Alley, Federalist Public House, Pre-Flite Lounge, Old Soul Coffee, Pachamama Coffee and Oakhaus — the latter being the latest Sacramento project opened by Bay Area restaurateur Thomas Schnetz on the edge of an alley in a brand-new development in a gentrifying neighborhood.

Las Vegas cannabis tourism is a roll of the dice two months into recreational pot legalization

BY ED MURRIETA

In the struggle for cultural commercialization and mainstream acceptance of cannabis, Sin City straddles miracle and mirage.

In less than three years since Nevada voters authorized medical cannabis, this oasis of indulgence has blossomed into a vertically integrated capital of cultivation, processing, manufacturing and retailing packaged for the masses amid glitz, glam and government regulations as keenly choreographed as Cirque du Soleil.

Thanks to voter approval in November and fast-tracked retail sales that began July 1, weed’s now legal for adult recreational use in Nevada, joining gambling and prostitution on the list of activities adults can enjoy in the Silver State but go to jail for elsewhere.

But is the Nevada pot experience attainable in toto? Is Las Vegas ready for its pot prime time?

RENO — The Biggest Little City in the World is dwarfed only by Las Vegas in Nevada’s newest bonanza — the greenrush of recreational cannabis and drug tourists’ dollars.

Thanks to Reno’s scale, getting a taste of Nevada’s newly legal recreational cannabis is a lot easier here than it is in sprawling Las Vegas, and Reno is a good place to begin exploring Nevada cannabis as growers, processors and edibles makers from Reno, Sparks, Carson City and Incline Village supply Las Vegas dispensaries. You can even buy a tourist-oriented welcome basket of Nevada cannabis products, marketed as the Vegas Weekend Box in both Las Vegas and Reno.

Whether you’re traveling to the Reno-Tahoe region to gamble, ski, see shows, engage prostitutes, make a pit stop en route to or from Burning Man, or solely to purchase pot legally, making cannabis part of your next visit here is easy — especially if you can swear off odiferous buds and commit to enjoying locally made edibles, tinctures and vape pens.

Arrive by automobile, bus or train and begin your Reno-Tahoe cannabis trip a short walk away from Reno’s “Biggest Little City” sign at Mynt, downtown Reno’s only cannabis store and creator/purveyor of Kynd, the locally produced, widely available line of flowers, edibles and concentrates.

Or reach Reno via Lake Tahoe, where recreational cannabis at Incline Village’s tony NuLeaf dispensary is the North Shore’s buzziest attraction since The Ponderosa Ranch “Bonanza” TV Western theme park invigorated the historic logging hamlet in the Sixties.

Along the way, behold breath-taking lake and mountain scenery, drink craft beer brewed from Lake Tahoe’s famous blue water and eat a cut above buffets.

California residents with medical cannabis recommendations will hit the pot-tourist jackpot a mile from the California-Nevada state line in South Lake Tahoe, where dispensary and grower Tahoe Wellness Cooperative operates a rare tourist necessity: a cannabis consumption lounge, in this case endorsed and sanctioned by city leaders expressly to keep people from smoking pot on South Lake Tahoe’s shore and streets.

South Lake Tahoe is also home to what the Reno-Tahoe region (and Las Vegas) needs to cultivate in higher volume — a bud, bed and breakfast run by an innkeeper who provides locally grown cannabis and the greenlight to smoke it legally, no matter where you come from.

Can’t bear the thought of foregoing joints, dabs and bong hits while you’re visiting Reno or the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe? Forget about staying at hotels. Instead, reserve a 420-friendly gypsy camping wagon, custom-made by a Burning Man artisan and easily towed or delivered to campgrounds or private properties in the Reno-Tahoe area.

Full-on legalization that will allow tourists from other states and other countries to purchase California cannabis from regulated retail stores is at least four months away.

But a provision in the Golden State’s recreational cannabis law provides a legal path to pot right now.

It’s called gifting, and since Prop. 64 took effect upon voter approval in November 2016 it’s been a way that cannabis-friendly tourist rentals — from an upscale cannabis resort on a historic ranch in the fabled Emerald Triangle to a modest apartment in a workaday Southern California neighborhood to a vegan bud, bed and breakfast in Lake Tahoe — can legally provide all of their adult guests tastes of local cannabis, similar to the way bottles of wine and wedges of cheese welcome guests in boutique hotels and inns across America.

“We don’t sell cannabis,” said Lisa Donnelly, proprietor of The Red Barn House guesthouse in remote Shasta County, 220 miles north of San Francisco. “But I can give guests a couple of grams from my own personal what-I’ve-got.”

Whether you’re a California resident who lacks a doctor’s recommendation to use state-legal medical cannabis, whether you live in any of America’s 49 other states or whether you’re visiting from any country in the world, it’s legal in California for one adult to gift another adult up to 1 ounce of cannabis.

But don’t expect that kind of weight awaiting you at California’s cannabis-gifting vacation rentals.

RENO — The Biggest Little City in the World is dwarfed only by Las Vegas in Nevada’s newest bonanza — the greenrush of recreational cannabis and drug tourists’ dollars.

Thanks to Reno’s scale, getting a taste of Nevada’s newly legal recreational cannabis is a lot easier here than it is in sprawling Las Vegas, and Reno is a good place to begin exploring Nevada cannabis as growers, processors and edibles makers from Reno, Sparks, Carson City and Incline Village supply Las Vegas dispensaries. You can even buy a tourist-oriented welcome basket of Nevada cannabis products, marketed as the Vegas Weekend Box in both Las Vegas and Reno.

Whether you’re traveling to the Reno-Tahoe region to gamble, ski, see shows, engage prostitutes, make a pit stop en route to or from Burning Man, or solely to purchase pot legally, making cannabis part of your next visit here is easy — especially if you can swear off odiferous buds and commit to enjoying locally made edibles, tinctures and vape pens.

Arrive by automobile, bus or train and begin your Reno-Tahoe cannabis trip a short walk away from Reno’s “Biggest Little City” sign at Mynt, downtown Reno’s only cannabis store and creator/purveyor of Kynd, the locally produced, widely available line of flowers, edibles and concentrates.

Or reach Reno via Lake Tahoe, where recreational cannabis at Incline Village’s tony NuLeaf dispensary is the North Shore’s buzziest attraction since The Ponderosa Ranch “Bonanza” TV Western theme park invigorated the historic logging hamlet in the Sixties.

Along the way, behold breath-taking lake and mountain scenery, drink craft beer brewed from Lake Tahoe’s famous blue water and eat a cut above buffets.

California residents with medical cannabis recommendations will hit the pot-tourist jackpot a mile from the California-Nevada state line in South Lake Tahoe, where dispensary and grower Tahoe Wellness Cooperative operates a rare tourist necessity: a cannabis consumption lounge, in this case endorsed and sanctioned by city leaders expressly to keep people from smoking pot on South Lake Tahoe’s shore and streets.

South Lake Tahoe is also home to what the Reno-Tahoe region (and Las Vegas) needs to cultivate in higher volume — a bud, bed and breakfast run by an innkeeper who provides locally grown cannabis and the greenlight to smoke it legally, no matter where you come from.

Can’t bear the thought of foregoing joints, dabs and bong hits while you’re visiting Reno or the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe? Forget about staying at hotels. Instead, reserve a 420-friendly gypsy camping wagon, custom-made by a Burning Man artisan and easily towed or delivered to campgrounds or private properties in the Reno-Tahoe area.

Photo courtesy of Mynt Cannabis.

RENO ITINERARY

You don’t want to spend your weekend visiting all eight dispensaries in and around Reno. Most carry similar products at similar prices reflective of a city governed by industries — gaming and tourism — designed to take your money. Shop according to your lodging proximity and save yourself trips across town — unless you’re a hard-core fan of San Francisco rapper and pot mogul and just have to try his high-end strains or need to pick up a cannabis survival kit specially designed for Burning Man.

Staying at Harrah’s, Circus Circus, Eldorado, Whitney Peak or the Burning Man-themed Morris Burner Hostel in downtown Reno? You’ll surely check out Mynt, downtown Reno’s only dispensary, located across the street from Harrah’s, within view of Greater Nevada Field, two blocks from the Reno Arch and an easy walk to the Truckee River and the RiverWalk pedestrian trail. Mynt’s sister company, Kynd, produces the region’s leading brand of strain-specific concentrates and artisan edibles, including THC and CBD chocolates and salted caramels hand-crafted exclusively for Kynd by a noted local chocolatier.

Mynt is also where you can get a taste of Las Vegas in a welcome basket, of sorts, curated for tourists. The Vegas Weekend Box launched in Reno’s larger sibling, Sin City, this summer, featuring cannabis products showcasing the best of Las Vegas and designed to last up to four newbie cannabis consumers throughout a weekend. Price at $199, Vegas Weekend Boxes contain consumer safety tips and a $30 discount to a vegan restaurant in a hip container park. They’ve been flying off the shelf at Mynt, never mind that the restaurant discount is for a restaurant in Las Vegas. A Reno Weekend Box is in the works but for now Mynt’s selling the Vegas version exclusively in Reno. In September, Vegas Weekend Boxes will include Mynt’s cannabis caramels.

Staying north of Reno in Sun Valley? Reef and Kanna Reno are located 2 miles apart.

One reason to visit either Reef location is Exotikz by Berner, connisseur-grade cannabis strains personally pheno-hunted by Berner, the San Francisco rapper and pot mogul, priced starting at $60 an eighth.

Luxuriating at Atlantis Casino Resort Spa or Peppermill Resort Spa Casino south of downtown Reno? Sate your need for weed at Blum or The Dispensary, both of which are en route to both destinations by car or frequently running city buses from downtown.

Headed to Burning Man? Not only will you want to take advantage of the room discounts and special spa packages that major Reno hotels offer before and after the counterculture gathering in the Black Rock desert 100 miles north of Reno, you may want to shop for a Burner Box at Blum.

Whether this is your first or 31st trip to Burning Man, you’ll be the envy of your theme camp when you unpack a Burner Box, a curated kit of cannabis essentials that includes cannabis oil, edibles, bud and joints from leading Reno and Las Vegas cultivators and producers, including salted caramels from Reno’s Mynt, enough to keep a Burner buzzed, along with other substances, for a week on the Playa, plus a pipe and rolling papers. Priced at $299, the Burner Box comes with a Vapor Slide cannabis oil vaporizer, a high-tech hybrid that retails for $99 and works on its own or in the stem of a water pipe.

While hotels woo Burning Man attendees, that doesn’t mean they’re drug-friendly, even toward legal recreational cannabis. “Despite the fact that recreational marijuana is legal to smoke in Nevada, smoking is not allowed at any Nevada hotel either on property or in the rooms,” a public relations representative for the Grand Sierra Resort said.

You may have your favorite places to eat and drink in Reno but consider local options beyond the air-conditioned confines of casinos. Shopping for cannabis at Blum or The Dispensary in Reno’s hip Midtown district? Stop by Brasserie Saint James, winner of the Great American Beer Festival’s 2014 Mid-Size Brewpub and Mid-Size Brewpub Brewer of the Year and the inspiration for the offshoot San Francisco brewpub. The menu features Belgian- and German-style beer and beer-friendly food like steak tartare, braised short ribs and oxtails and fried chicken and waffles. Walk three blocks and you’ll reach SixFour Growlers, a barebones taproom where you can get take-out growlers filled with 30 local and regional beers. For higher style and abstract art, Loulu’s serves a sophisticated New American menu.

In downtown Reno, a meal at the Nevada Museum of Art is a must. Tucked inside the museum, Chez Louie serves French-inspired fare — pate, terrines, bouillabaisse, crepes, tartines — for lunch and dinner and fortifies Sunday brunch with a Bloody Mary bar and live jazz. After brunch, enjoy a free guided tour of the museum, an arty gem that boasts rare accreditation from the American Alliance of Museums.

For hipster casual with a side of cornhole, hit The Eddy, an open-air cluster of shipping containers on the north side of the Truckee River on Sierra Street featuring three bars, multiple patios, food trailers and games, including ball-rolling bocce and beanbag-tossing cornhole.

For amusement, you could load up on edibles and lose yourself in immersive video-game-style slot machines. For non-casino shiny-object fun, check out the classic collection at the National Automobile Museum. Or test your pot-addled deductive skills and claustrophobic tolerance by locking yourself behind a door and playing an escape game at Puzzle Room.

Photo courtesy of NuLeaf.

INCLINE VILLAGE ITINERARY

About an hour’s drive from both Reno and South Lake Tahoe, Incline Village is a picturesque hamlet on the North Shore of Lake Tahoe — located smack in the heart of the fictional Ponderosa Ranch of “Bonanza” fame and home of the former theme park that celebrated the long-running TV Western.

Today, Incline Village is home to some of the richest people in America and home to one of the better brands in Nevada’s cannabis industry — NuLeaf, a dispensary with operational ties Berkeley Patients Group.

Located on the town’s main boulevard, NuLeaf hosted more than 2,000 customers in the first week it sold recreational cannabis on Aug. 5-6. Choose from NuLeaf brand flowers, concentrates and edibles grown and produced in NuLeaf’s cultivation and manufacturing facility on the other side of the Carson Range in Carson City.

Indulge in edibles then indulge yourself and your senses with spa and massage treatments at Stillwater Spa & Salon at the Hyatt.

For lunch, grab a sandwich or the fixings for a meat-and-cheese picnic at Village Meats, a full-service butcher shop and smokehouse that also serves breakfast tacos and breakfast burritos and housemade quiche. For dinner, assemble a small-plates feast a Bite, a thoughtful, casually elegant American tapas cafe. For craft beer brewed from Lake Tahoe’s famously pristine water, don’t miss the snappy Saison or toasty porter at Alibi Ale Works.

Tow the wagon behind your vehicle from Reno or have it delivered to Zephyr Cove Resort’s RV Park and Campground on the South Shore. Check with the Zephyr Cove operators; they’ll tell you it’s OK for adults to smoke cannabis inside recreational vehicles and trailers.

Close the door for private hot-box smoke seshes or prepare cups of cannabis-infused coffee, tea or hot chocolate (again, the Jane’s Brew brand).

Rates are $100 to $149 per night, plus $100 minimum delivery fee.

Photo courtesy of Gypsy Getaway Wagons.

Photo courtesy of Gypsy Getaway Wagons.

If camping under Lake Tahoe’s Ponderosa pines and the influence of cannabis isn’t entertainment enough, you can catch a show at a Stateline casino-hotel, say Cheech and Chong on Aug 18, Michael Franti and Spearhead on Sept. 15 and Los Lobos on Oct. 6, or the Electroswing Burlesque Show on Aug. 31 at The Loft Theater Dining Lounge.

Photo courtesy of Tahoe Wellness Collective.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE ITINERARY

Jonesing for a dab after a three-and-a-half-hour drive from the Bay Area to South Lake Tahoe? Gotta smoke a joint after a toke-free, edibles-only weekend in a Reno hotel?

California residents authorized to use medical cannabis will make Tahoe Wellness Cooperative their first stop in South Lake Tahoe, the lakefront city on the California-Nevada border.

Fragrant of cannabis, reggae music and psychedelic art, Tahoe Wellness Cooperative exudes South Lake Tahoe’s laid-back, casual vibe. Along with the only public consumption lounge in the Reno-Tahoe region, Tahoe Wellness grows its own house strains — a sativa (SourBand), an indica (The Purps) and a hybrid (Girl Scout Cookies). Bongs and rolling papers are provided in the comfortable consumption lounge, which is open all day and transforms into a solvent-free hash bar at 4:20 p.m., when you can use house e-nails and purchase hash that Tahoe Wellness staff will heat-press into oil-rich full-melt rosin at no charge.

Not from California? Don’t have a medical cannabis card? Don’t worry. The innkeeper of The Om House, Tahoe’s only bud, bed and breakfast, has you covered. Under California’s recreational cannabis law, it’s legal to gift cannabis. That sweet treat in your charming South Lake Tahoe mountain retreat won’t be chocolate on your pillow — it’s going to be Tahoe-grown cannabis that the innkeeper gifts to his guests. There’s even pipe to enjoy it.

You don’t have to be a California resident to receive or use a cannabis gift at The Om House. Just be at least 21 years old.

Located in a tranquil, tree-filled residential neighborhood on Gardner Mountain, about a mile from where Highway 50 meets Lake Tahoe Boulevard, The Om House is a 15-minute drive to Tahoe Wellness and a 5-mile hike to picturesque Fallen Leaf Lake via a nearby trail. Priced $149 per night for two people, it’s dog-friendly, too.

Photo courtesy of The Om House.

Sound too good to be true? There is a catch. The Om House is strictly vegan — no meat or dairy are allowed on the property, even the grill on the deck. The Om House is well-stocked with healthful snacks and pantry items in case you get the vegan munchies from the all-natural cannabis on your pillow.

Photo courtesy of The Om House.

Photo courtesy of The Om House.

For lunch, Red Hut Cafe serves breakfast all day so you can enjoy the meal you skipped traveling here and get your fill of bacon and milk shakes without upsetting The Om House’s vegan vibe.

For dinner, take advantage of The Om House’s well-appointed kitchen and prepare a meal from local sources gladly recommend by the innkeeper. Or slurp dinner at The Oyster Bar at The Hard Rock Hotel and Casino across the border in Stateline, Nev., before catching an outdoor concert at the nearby MontBleu Resort Casino & Spa, one that surely will be enhanced by the edibles you consume before dinner — say Cheech and Chong on Aug 18, Michael Franti and Spearhead on Sept. 15 and Los Lobos on Oct. 6, or the Electroswing Burlesque Show on Aug. 31 at The Loft Theater Dining Lounge.

In the morning, wake and bake and rise and fly — getting as high as you can in body and mind before going as high as $299 per person takes you over Lake Tahoe via balloon. Enjoy a pre-dawn toke to start your day the cannabis connoisseur way then top off your high with a low-dose edible eaten with your bagel and vegan cream cheese and set out at sunrise for a 90-minute flight with Lake Tahoe Balloons, eventually reaching peak air altitude and peak edibles altitude at about the same time. A light meal and a glass of wine are included. Afterward, come down to earth with grounding CBD capsules or relaxing tokes at Tahoe Wellness. Balloon season ends Oct. 16.

The LawIn Nevada, cannabis is legal for adults, age 21 and older, to consume in private residences and private buildings with owners’ permission. It’s illegal to consume cannabis in public, in hotels, in casinos and in moving vehicles. You can take a 2-hour wine-tasting cruise on the lake but you can’t smoke on the water. Lake Tahoe is under the jurisdiction of the United States Coast Guard, a branch of the military that enforces federal drug laws.

Deliveries Deliveries are allowed by Nevada law but under a statewide emergency order that allowed recreational cannabis sales to begin July 1, deliveries to hotels are banned. Deliveries can be made to any other public or private — a coffee house or your aunt’s house.

Purchasing LimitsNevada’s recreational pot law allows adults to purchase 1 ounce of flowers, 3.5 grams of concentrates or 3,500 mg of edibles per day. Odds are you won’t come close to consuming in a weekend.

PersonalLimits First-timer? Resist kid-in-candy-store urges to purchase and consume mass quantities. A little pot can go a long way. One eighth of an ounce of cannabis flowers can last a seasoned cannabis user three days or more.

Consuming EdiblesGo slow, star low, especially with edibles and even if you’re experienced. The standard edible portion size in Nevada is 10 mg. Some low-dose edibles are 5 mg. 25 mg is strong enough make an experienced user wobble and swoon. Eat edibles after eating other food to aid digestion. It can take up to two hours before you feel edibles’ effects. Start with 5 mg, gauge effects and consume more as desired. Sublinguals have a faster onset time. Smoking effects are immediate, vaping slightly longer. Take a puff or two, gauge effects and consume more as desired.

Hotels and Resorts While hotels and resorts woo Burning Man attendees, that doesn’t mean they’re drug-friendly, even toward legal recreational cannabis. “Despite the fact that recreational marijuana is legal to smoke in Nevada, smoking is not allowed at any Nevada hotel either on property or in the rooms,” a public relations representative for the Grand Sierra Resort said.

Swear Off SmokingAvoid causing any sort of stink at hotels and commit to going smoke-free in Reno, opting instead for discrete edibles, tinctures and vape pens. You won’t incur a room-cleaning fee for eating cannabis-infused candy or brewing a K-cup or pouch of Jane’s Brew cannabis-infused coffee or tea. Harrah’s, Peppermill, Whitney Peak, Hilton Garden and The Nugget feature Keurig K-cup coffeemakers in rooms.

Stay HydratedThey can’t grow pot in the high desert and mountain altitudes without water and you won’t be comfortable without it. Smoked or eaten, cannabis can dry you out. Think cottonmouth is bad? Think about headaches, dizziness and muscle cramps from dehydration.

Wear SunscreenSave your skin with cannabis-infused sunscreen. Evergreen Organix is THC infused and SPF 30. It not only provides anti-aging sunblock protection but it’s anti-inflammatory and reduces localized pain should you get burned. Available at NuLeaf, Reef, Rise, Silver State Relief, Sierra Wellness and these dispensaries.

Reciprocity Reciprocity is a unique Nevada program that honors medical cannabis cards from other states, allowing non-Nevada residents to purchase medical cannabis products. Not only can medical card holders avoid paying Nevada’s 10 percent excise tax but they can purchase cannabis products recreational customers can’t — like high-potency edibles up to triple the limit of the recreational market’s 100-mg-per-product-unit limit.

Brothels Cannabis and prostitution are both legal in Nevada but the twain can’t legally meet, never mind that science calls cannabis an aphrodisiac. A bill that would have authorized smoking and vaping lounges in all manner of Nevada businesses, including brothels in and around Carson City, stalled in the state Legislature in June. The governor vetoed a bill that would have legalized cannabis-infused massages. But that doesn’t mean you can’t enhance brothel sex with cannabis. Like erection enhancers Viagra and Cialis, edibles take a while to kick in so plan your aphrodisiac intake accordingly.

California Side of Lake TahoeTahoe Wellness Collective is the only medical cannabis dispensary on the California side of Lake Tahoe. Dispensaries are banned on the western shore of Lake Tahoe and inland into Squaw Valley and Truckee. Delivery firms service the region.

Traveling with Pot It’s illegal to take Nevada cannabis out of Nevada. Don’t take cannabis on airplanes. Don’t carry cannabis on Greyhound, MegaBus or Amtrak. Don’t drive across state lines with Nevada cannabis in your car. Don’t get on a local bus from Incline Village to Truckee or anywhere on Lake Tahoe’s California side.

Las Vegas Cannabis Tourism Is a Roll of the Dice
Just Two Months into Recreational Legalization

In less than three years since Nevada voters authorized medical cannabis, Sin City has blossomed into a vertically integrated capital of cultivation, processing, manufacturing and retailing packaged for the masses amid glitz, glam and government regulations as keenly choreographed as Cirque du Soleil.

Thanks to voter approval in November and fast-tracked retail sales that began July 1, weed’s now legal for adult recreational use in Nevada, joining gambling and prostitution on the list of activities adults can enjoy in the Silver State but go to jail for elsewhere.

But is Nevada’s newest formerly illicit indulgence attainable in toto?

You can buy pot on The Strip — from a boutique whose name sounds like a showgirl’s: Essence. But odds are overwhelmingly stacked against any pipe dreams of toking up at gaming tables, where cigarettes are legal, or in rooms and suites or poolside at major casino-hotels.

Cannabis no longer carries the threat of 20 years in state prison for possession or life behind bars for sales. But openly enjoying pot still seems shady, fueled by casinos’ fealty to federal regulators who mandate opposition to cannabis, which, after all, is legal only at the state level in Nevada, one of eight American states that embrace the controversial botanical drug.

You can’t legally smoke a joint, burn a bowl, hit a bong, vape a pen, do a dab or consume an edible anywhere in Nevada except in private residences and private buildings with owners’ permission, never mind the state’s live-and-let-live libertarian leanings.

Of course, only you and your budtender know if the gummy candies you’re gobbling contain cannabis, and people do indeed pass off their vape pens for e-cigarettes in some hotels. But smoke a joint on The Strip or in hotels and casinos and face a $600 ticket, a pricey room-cleaning fee or outright ejection.

RENO — The Biggest Little City in the World is second only to Las Vegas in Nevada’s newest bonanza — the golden greenrush of recreational cannabis in the Silver State.

Despite a court order to prevent the state’s new cannabis regulating body from allowing dispensaries to begin recreational sales next month, cannabis retailers are determined to meet the July 1 start date.

Whether you’re traveling to gamble, see a show, to make a pit stop on the way to or from Burning Man, to soak up nature or to buy pot, here’s everything you need to know about making recreational and medical cannabis part of your next visit to the Reno, Sparks, Carson City, Incline Village, South Lake Tahoe, Kings Beach or Truckee.

Medical Reciprocity
People authorized to use medical cannabis in their home states can use their valid doctor’s note and identification to shop at Nevada dispensaries. An individual may purchase X amount of cannabis in X period.

Where to Legally Consume
Cannabis use is legal only in private residences with landlord’s permission. Cannabis is not legal in hotels, rental cars or in public. That said, major hotels court Burning Man attendees. The likelihood of people smoking pot in Reno hotel rooms without hassled has been tested. Based on my two stays at both the Circus Circus and the Sands Regency in December, smoking pot in cigarette-smoking rooms probably won’t cost you cleaning fees or your loss of your damage deposits.

Silver State Souvenirs
What’s grown and processed in Nevada, stays in Nevada. It’s illegal to transport cannabis — flower, concentrates, edibles, tinctures, creams, transdermal patches and suppositories — across state lines, even if you have a doctor’s note to use it. Amtrak, Greyhound and airlines prohibit transportation.

Products from Denver-based Dixie, many of which you don’t find in Northern California dispensaries.

5 Reno Concentrates to Try

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RETAIL STORES & MEDICAL DISPENSARIES

Reno

Mynt Cannabis — The only cannabis retailer or dispensary in downtown Reno. Located across the street from Harrah’s, within view of Greater Nevada Field, less than three blocks from the Reno Arch and an easy walk to the Truckee River and the RiverWalk pedestrian trail.

Blum — Branch of the company that runs the Blum dispensary in Oakland. In Midtown neighborhood, near many bars and restaurnts. Catch No.1 Bus from downtown 4th Street Station.

The Nevada Museum of Art is a rare gem — an institution accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. Only about 1,000 of America’s 33,000 museums are accredited by the AAM. Sunday brunch with Bloody Mary bar and live music in the museum’s cafe.

Greater Nevada Field — home of the Reno Aces, the Triple-A minor league Pacific Coast baseball affiliate of the Arizona Diamondbacks. Never mind peanuts and Cracker Jack. Try locally made Kynd and CannaBella edibles and enjoy the old ballgame.

FLY
Newark, NJ, to Reno, with layovers in Chicago, Denver or San Francisco is just under $420 on United Airlines. Non-stop from Los Angeles about $250 and non-stop from Miami about $600, on United and American. Flights from remote Humboldt county are $xxx.

TRAIN
Get on board America’s best mode of subsidize train travel before Amtrak is eliminated by President Trump’s proposed budget. From Seattle ($xxx) and Portland ($xxx), transfer trains in Sacramento, where a trip starting from the California capital costs $xx. From Los Angeles ($xxx), transfer trains in Stockton. From Denver, it’s an overnight train trip that’ll cost approximately $100 to $160.

BROTHELS
Cannabis and prostitution are both legal in Nevada but the twain can’t legally meet, never mind that science calls cannabis an aphrodisiac. Nevada brothel kingpin Dennis Hof told me he’d welcome cannabis use in his Bunny Ranch and other brothels. But that was before the bill that would have authorized smoking and vaping lounges in all manner of Nevada businesses stalled in the state Legislature. [Quotes available.] Meanwhile, a bill that would have legalized cannabis-infused massages, was vetoed by the governor. Too bad. As Bunny Ranch veteran Sable Renae told me, “I use edibles to control Celiac Disease and would love to offer massage with infused oils.” If you ever popped Viagra or another erection enhancer, you’ll know to take them ahead of time because they take a while to kick in — just like cannabis-infused edibles, the other aphrodisiac you may want to consume before visiting brothels.

Whether you’re looking for your cannabis love connection or just a hopped-up hookup in San Francisco’s sexiest dispensary lounges this Valentine’s Day, you’ll surely take precautions, and especially in public smoke-sesh situations. Foremost because the valid California medical cannabis recommendation you need to carry to keep things legal here protects you like a prophylactic pot passport.

But more importantly because cannabis compatibility is a prerequisite for successful relationships under the influence. Your taste for old-school joints and his thing for high-tech vape pens could snuff out what might otherwise be true love.

You’ll know other deal breakers — like when he over-compensates with elaborate bongs, or when she dumps the contents of the Volcano chamber when the weed contains more good hits.

Of course, you’ll recognize your stoner soul mates should you meet cute over cannabis. If so, may the cherries on your doobies burn hot and long.

Here, then, are seven places where you can blaze, dab or vape your Valentine’s Day hearts content in the pot-lovingest smoke-sesh city by the bay.

RENO — Here’s a new word for your cannabis lexicon, one that will serve you well if you’re a gambler, skier or business traveler seeking medical cannabis in Nevada:

Reciprocity.

In woo-woo terms, reciprocity is an exchange of mutual benefit. In potspeak, reciprocity means people from California and 26 other states and the District of Columbia can legally obtain and use medical cannabis in Nevada.

While dispensaries and the state attorney general haggle over the exact documentation California residents must provide, Nevada offers reciprocity to qualified medical cannabis patients from any state where medical cannabis is legal.

Medical cannabis users no longer need to transport their stash across state lines. They can buy it Nevada.

SAN FRANCISCO — Those who make a day of holiday shopping around Union Square and the Westfield San Francisco Centre — and, especially, those who accompany shoppers against their better judgment — often need a break. Medical cannabis dispensaries and lounges are plentiful in downtown San Francisco, and much of what you’ll find reflects the best of what the city has to offer.

Even though cannabis was recently legalized for use in California by adults age 21 and over, your valid doctor’s recommendation to use medical cannabis is your required passport to holiday shopping escape at these dispensary lounges.

HIGH-END DISPENSARIES
San Francisco dispensaries have blossomed from black-windowed dope dens where you view goods behind bullet-proof glass into haute retail salons where you can handle merchandise displayed on reclaimed-wood shelves. Design-wise, SPARC set the standard with its Genius Bar tones. As for those that feel like day-spa gift shops, The Apothecary recently outgrew its sanctuary-style space and moved into new gracefully designed digs next to Whole Foods. Apothecary will open in the tony Marina District soon. Harvest Shops, San Francisco’s newest and most luxe dispensary, belongs in Union Square, not the fog-bound Richmond District. Prices and quality at these dispensaries, of course, reflect their surroundings.

SMOKE & VAPE LOUNGES
San Francisco dispensaries are models of social cannabis lounges, providing locals and tourists safe and convenient spaces to smoke, vaporize or ediblize cannabis. Many are located South of Market, near major downtown shopping and entertainment destinations. SPARC, sleek and cold like a nightclub inside an Apple store; Igzactly420, homey and warm in a high-rise jungle; and Bloom Room, hip and colorfully arty in an alley, are vape-only and provide high-end Volcano vaporizers. If you purchase something at The Green Door, go next door to its lounge, the appropriately loungey Lounge847, which, when not being rented for private events, accommodates all forms of cannabis consumption. Exhuding a steamy steampunk sex club vibe, Urban Pharm allows smoking and vaping but provides no vaporizers. Surfers will appreciate 1944 Ocean Collective’s proximity to Ocean Beach, plus its stellar lineup of concentrates and cozy Volcano bar. Some dispensary lounges post time limits. Some offer perks like hot tea stations and lemony water. All offer clean restrooms, a top tourist perk anywhere. Planning a longer-term visit? Harvest Shops offers San Francisco’s most exclusive place to smoke pot — a plush private lounge that requires management approval of prospective members and $100 monthly dues. Member perks include cannabis concierges and private stash lockers.

JUST DAB IT
Dabbing cannabis concentrates — consuming shatter, wax, budder and other newfangled forms with the assistance of white-hot metal tools — is de rigeur. Urban Pharm offers $5 dabs at its budtender-manned dab bar, double-rigged so you can dab with your bestie. Barbary Coast Collective features four pages of concentrates in its book-like menu and plans to open a dab bar this fall.

GANJA YOGA
Do you prefer to smoke, vaporize or ediblize before double-dog downing? Ganja Yoga instructor Dee Dussalt is flexible. She has different classes at different private locations South of Market and near Civic Center, $25 per stretch sesh, vape pens, edibles and cannabis included for yogis and yoginis who possess California medical cannabis recommendations.

POP-UP POP POT DINNER
The Cannaisseur Series is a pop-up dinner South of Market featuring four courses containing no cannabis but paired with pot — intermezzos of buds, joints, extracts and edibles. Note: The amuse bouche are always amusingly medicated; help and pace yourself. A recent dinner celebrated Oktoberfest. The Nov. 20 fall-harvest dinner ($149) promises seasonal vegetables, sun-grown cannabis and a vapor bar. The Cannaisseur Series anticipated legalization but says on its invite, “Until further notice you are required to have a California medical cannabis recommendation to attend this event.”

EDIBLES LESSON
Learn to make gourmet cannabis butter and cannabis oil from Jeff the 420 Chef. Bring your own cannabis (an eighth is recommended) and your doctor’s recommendation to use medical cannabis; Jeff the 420 Chef will provide all the other ingredients and kitchen tools you’ll need and guide you through recipes from simple hors d’oeuvres to gourmet meals. Classes are $85 and $175 (the latter includes the chef’s home-kitchen butter/oil-infusing kit).

COOKIES CLOTHES
There’s more to shop for on Haight Street than pinched baggies of pot. Cookies SF, the dispensary with the eponymous genetics, is way off the tourists’ path in the city’s southern Excelsior District. But its clothing boutique is smack-dab in the center of San Francisco on Haight Street, selling $40 t-shirts and $100 hoodies emblazoned with the Cookies SF logo.

FORE PLAY
Tripping balls from your sesh at Igzactly420 or Lounge847 and got the urge to hit balls into a video golf simulator? Trip into nearby Eagle Club Indoor Golf, where it gets even tripper hitting balls into a simulation of San Francisco’s exclusive Olympic Club, one of dozens of elite courses around the world programmed for play. If paddles and plastic balls give you pleasure, hit SPiN, pothead actress Susan Sarandon’s ping pong cafe. The joint wears its “street” vibe like Axe Body Spray; so wear your $100 Cookies hoodie here.

LODGING
Visit enough smoking and vaping lounges and you won’t think twice about consuming in your hotel room. If you must book a room and smoke, there’s a reason all the best cannabis industry conferences use the Hyatt Regency Embarcadero: smoking balconies. If you’re willing to give up a few star ratings in exchange for a brush with San Francisco cannabis royalty, book a room at Castro Castle, a smoke-it-if-you’ve-got-it bed and breakfast that doubles as the Flintstonian hippie home of Dennis Peron, the pot activist who ushered medical cannabis into California.

SAN FRANCISCOThe Aficionados’ Treat
California’s most sophisticated city promises the Golden State’s most sophisticated cannabis travel experience. Chic dispensaries, high-quality cannabis, smoking and vaping lounges, pot-paired dinners, edibles cooking classes and ganja yoga all available to visitors with valid medical cannabis recommendations. Plus all the general tourist attractions — restaurants, museums, shopping, big-city energy — that make San Francisco a world-class travel destination without weed.READ MORE

MENDOCINORetired Hippies’ Heaven
Never has the tie-dyed dream of traveling back roads in a vintage Volkswagen bus been more palpable than when turning off Highway 101 onto Highway 128 wending west, where the landscape turns to grapevines and farm houses. Yes, this is Mendocino County wine country, and as the axiom asserts — where wine grows, weed grows — it’s also cannabis country. Seeds of cannabis tourism have been planted here and will mature over time like wine.READ MORE

HUMBOLDTThe Outdoorsman’s Oasis
You’re midway into a 590-nautical-mile run down the Pacific from Seattle to San Francisco aboard your Tayana 37 sloop. Before you tackle Cape Mendocino, pull into the safe harbor of Humboldt Bay. Not a sailor? Bring or rent toys for paddling, surfing, rafting, biking and hiking. Take a pack-mule trip. Heck, just find naked swimming holes in any of the county’s six rivers. Humboldt’s a bounty of adventure — especially if you stray into the wrong pot patch.READ MORE

MARIN
Girls’ Spa Weekend
Don’t let the lack of an actual cannabis spa in the Bay Area keep you and your BFFs from enjoying a cannabis spa weekend. DIY and BYO, girls. Load up on body-soothing edibles, topicals and frozen raw cannabis juice shots. Check into a four-star spa. Hike the Headlands. Soak up Sausalito. Book a private cannabis products demo for you and your besties.READ MORE

TAHOE
For the BrosIf the Rat Pack (and not just Peter Lawford) had been stoners, it would be all buds and bros in Tahoe today. Wait — it is, bro. Grab your goggles and go for solar hits and back-country boarding; ganja-fueled gambling; Nevada dispensaries and brothels; and a free haircut if you’re lucky.READ MORE

SACRAMENTOPerfect for The Parents
Sacramento is a political town, but even cannabis regulation and taxation take back seats to the interest in the Kings’ new downtown arena. The city’s culinary scene sizzles and beckons even San Francisco food critics. To spark your appetite for Sacramento’s farm-to-fork fare, or to quell the nauseating hype of the new arena, medical cannabis patients can smoke throughout the state capital’s walkable and bikeable downtown neighborhoods — even on the Capitol steps. Stick to the city core and you may not need a car.READ MORE

If the Rat Pack (and not just Peter Lawford) had been stoners, it would be all buds and bros in Tahoe today. Wait — it is, bro. Grab your goggles and go for solar hits and back-country boarding; ganja-fueled gambling; Nevada dispensaries and brothels; and a free haircut if you’re lucky. — Ed Murrieta

MEDICAL CANNABIS There’s only one dispensary on the California side of Lake Tahoe. Visit Tahoe Wellness in South Lake Tahoe for flowers, concentrates and edibles — plus an on-premises smoking lounge and free haircuts by a collective member/stylist, the latter by appointment on Fridays.

CROSS THE LINEGot a California state medical cannabis ID card? Medical cannabis dispensaries in neighboring Nevada offer reciprocity. (Translation, if you’ve got a Golden State medical cannabis ID card — available for $200 at your local county health department — you can buy medical cannabis in the Silver State.) A 20-minute drive to the North Shore from South Lake Tahoe, NuLeaf, a joint project with Berkeley Patients Group, is the lone dispensary on the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe. Head to Reno and Sparks for even more dispensaries offering reciprocity. Note the laws: What you buy in Nevada stays in Nevada, and don’t bring California weed into Nevada.

SEXY TIMEBrothels in Sparks and Carson City offer some of Nevada’s other legal pleasures. As you must for sex acts, negotiate with your sex worker whether you can use cannabis in the room. And be sure to tell her if you’re packing cannabis lube.

STAYScore a smoking room and a balcony the Hard Rock Casino just across the California state line in Stateline, Nev. Or check into Harrah’s — where few will smell the weed in your pocket for all the cigarette smoke in the house. On the California side, The Lakeshore Lodge and Spa offers lake-view balconies, patios and 500 feet of private beach in South Lake Tahoe.

DRINKFor local craft beer, crawl South Lake Tahoe Boulevard: Cold Water Brewery and Grill, The Brewery At Lake Tahoe, Stateline Brewery & Restaurant. In Incline Village, Alibi Ale Works resists over-hopped West Coast IPA in favor of well-rounded flavors. To the northwest in Tahoe City and Truckee Tahoe Mountain Brewing and FiftyFifty Brewing specialize barrel-aged beers.

EATAdd tacos — Taqueria Jalisco, Taco Taqueria and Taqueria Jiminez to your South Lake Tahoe Boulevard craft beer crawl. Go German at Himmel Haus. Mustang Ranch Steak House in Carson City has nothing to do with Mustang Ranch brothel in Sparks. Play it safe with steaks at the Hard Rock.

SAN FRANCISCOThe Aficionados’ Treat
California’s most sophisticated city promises the Golden State’s most sophisticated cannabis travel experience. Chic dispensaries, high-quality cannabis, smoking and vaping lounges, pot-paired dinners, edibles cooking classes and ganja yoga all available to visitors with valid medical cannabis recommendations. Plus all the general tourist attractions — restaurants, museums, shopping, big-city energy — that make San Francisco a world-class travel destination without weed.READ MORE

MENDOCINORetired Hippies’ Heaven
Never has the tie-dyed dream of traveling back roads in a vintage Volkswagen bus been more palpable than when turning off Highway 101 onto Highway 128 wending west, where the landscape turns to grapevines and farm houses. Yes, this is Mendocino County wine country, and as the axiom asserts — where wine grows, weed grows — it’s also cannabis country. Seeds of cannabis tourism have been planted here and will mature over time like wine.READ MORE

HUMBOLDTThe Outdoorsman’s Oasis
You’re midway into a 590-nautical-mile run down the Pacific from Seattle to San Francisco aboard your Tayana 37 sloop. Before you tackle Cape Mendocino, pull into the safe harbor of Humboldt Bay. Not a sailor? Bring or rent toys for paddling, surfing, rafting, biking and hiking. Take a pack-mule trip. Heck, just find naked swimming holes in any of the county’s six rivers. Humboldt’s a bounty of adventure — especially if you stray into the wrong pot patch.READ MORE

MARIN
Girls’ Spa Weekend
Don’t let the lack of an actual cannabis spa in the Bay Area keep you and your BFFs from enjoying a cannabis spa weekend. DIY and BYO, girls. Load up on body-soothing edibles, topicals and frozen raw cannabis juice shots. Check into a four-star spa. Hike the Headlands. Soak up Sausalito. Book a private cannabis products demo for you and your besties.READ MORE

TAHOE
For the BrosIf the Rat Pack (and not just Peter Lawford) had been stoners, it would be all buds and bros in Tahoe today. Wait — it is, bro. Grab your goggles and go for solar hits and back-country boarding; ganja-fueled gambling; Nevada dispensaries and brothels; and a free haircut if you’re lucky.READ MORE

SACRAMENTOPerfect for The Parents
Sacramento is a political town, but even cannabis regulation and taxation take back seats to the interest in the Kings’ new downtown arena. The city’s culinary scene sizzles and beckons even San Francisco food critics. To spark your appetite for Sacramento’s farm-to-fork fare, or to quell the nauseating hype of the new arena, medical cannabis patients can smoke throughout the state capital’s walkable and bikeable downtown neighborhoods — even on the Capitol steps. Stick to the city core and you may not need a car.READ MORE

Don’t let the lack of an actual cannabis spa in the Bay Area keep you and your BFFs from enjoying a cannabis spa weekend. DIY and BYO, girls. Load up on body-soothing edibles, topicals and frozen raw cannabis juice shots. Check into a four-star spa. Hike the Headlands. Soak up Sausalito. Book a private cannabis products demo for you and your besties. — Ed Murrieta

STAY & SPA Located in a historic former Army base with in-your-face views of the Golden Gate Bridge, Cavallo Point Lodge in Sausalito is one of Travel + Leisure’s top-rated hotel spas in the continental United States. It offers no cannabis spa treatments; its rooms are non-smoking; and, per its website, “Outside food and drink of any kind is not permitted” in the meditative tea garden. So forget about hemp-seed body scrubs. Re-think pre-soak tokes. Never mind sipping gogi-lime coloadas spiked with cannabis tincture. But do partake of facials, body treatments and massages — enhanced by the edibles you enjoyed in your room, the vaporizer you hit on a hike and the cannabis balm your besties rub in the aching places you can’t reach. For now, merely dream about learning to cook gourmet cannabis meals in Cavallo Point’s dreamy classroom kitchen.

EATAwake to baked goods and coffee in lobby. Cavallo Point restaurant serves all meals: breakfast, brunch, lunch and dinner. Or walk to Sausalito for the wood-fired meatballs and lemon mousse at Poggio.

SAN FRANCISCOThe Aficionados’ Treat
California’s most sophisticated city promises the Golden State’s most sophisticated cannabis travel experience. Chic dispensaries, high-quality cannabis, smoking and vaping lounges, pot-paired dinners, edibles cooking classes and ganja yoga all available to visitors with valid medical cannabis recommendations. Plus all the general tourist attractions — restaurants, museums, shopping, big-city energy — that make San Francisco a world-class travel destination without weed.READ MORE

MENDOCINORetired Hippies’ Heaven
Never has the tie-dyed dream of traveling back roads in a vintage Volkswagen bus been more palpable than when turning off Highway 101 onto Highway 128 wending west, where the landscape turns to grapevines and farm houses. Yes, this is Mendocino County wine country, and as the axiom asserts — where wine grows, weed grows — it’s also cannabis country. Seeds of cannabis tourism have been planted here and will mature over time like wine.READ MORE

HUMBOLDTThe Outdoorsman’s Oasis
You’re midway into a 590-nautical-mile run down the Pacific from Seattle to San Francisco aboard your Tayana 37 sloop. Before you tackle Cape Mendocino, pull into the safe harbor of Humboldt Bay. Not a sailor? Bring or rent toys for paddling, surfing, rafting, biking and hiking. Take a pack-mule trip. Heck, just find naked swimming holes in any of the county’s six rivers. Humboldt’s a bounty of adventure — especially if you stray into the wrong pot patch.READ MORE

MARIN
Girls’ Spa Weekend
Don’t let the lack of an actual cannabis spa in the Bay Area keep you and your BFFs from enjoying a cannabis spa weekend. DIY and BYO, girls. Load up on body-soothing edibles, topicals and frozen raw cannabis juice shots. Check into a four-star spa. Hike the Headlands. Soak up Sausalito. Book a private cannabis products demo for you and your besties.READ MORE

TAHOE
For the BrosIf the Rat Pack (and not just Peter Lawford) had been stoners, it would be all buds and bros in Tahoe today. Wait — it is, bro. Grab your goggles and go for solar hits and back-country boarding; ganja-fueled gambling; Nevada dispensaries and brothels; and a free haircut if you’re lucky.READ MORE

SACRAMENTOPerfect for The Parents
Sacramento is a political town, but even cannabis regulation and taxation take back seats to the interest in the Kings’ new downtown arena. The city’s culinary scene sizzles and beckons even San Francisco food critics. To spark your appetite for Sacramento’s farm-to-fork fare, or to quell the nauseating hype of the new arena, medical cannabis patients can smoke throughout the state capital’s walkable and bikeable downtown neighborhoods — even on the Capitol steps. Stick to the city core and you may not need a car.READ MORE

Produced by Ed Murrieta, Content Creator & Media Visionary

Content Creator

Media Producer

Editor & Writer

Visionary

I've worked as a reporter, writer, editor, streaming media producer, content manager and marketer at leading online news sites, major newspapers and pioneering media start-ups. I'm also a culinary school graduate who's worked in food production and restaurant operations.